


Scars

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:39:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4677137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya has dozens of scars covering his body, from KGB, from missions, from the disturbed childhood that appears in his file. </p><p>This is the story of the team seeing them and hearing what caused them. Each chapter is the story of a scar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 29 lashes

The first time Napoleon saw it it was when they were changing clothes on the dressing room – they were working a case in a sports club, pretending to be tennis players, supposed to play against some dangerous arms traffickers. It was possibly the first time he'd seen his partner's back so close, and there was something that stands out more than anything else: a series of vertical scars that started on his shoulders and went down on his back.

Peril covered himself up too quickly for Napoleon to count them, but there was a lot of them, more than ten, maybe even more than twenty. He didn't mention anything, because he knew how self conscious Peril was about his marked body, but noted down the fact for future reference.

When he discussed it with Gaby, she mentioned that he may have been whipped.

“Whipped? We're in the twentieth century, for god's sakes! Who does that anymore?”

After thinking about it for a bit, Gaby came up with a theory.

“It says in his file, that when he was sixteen his mother went missing and he was in a sort of orphanage. A guy like him probably got in a lot of fights and maybe the caretakers thought that the only way to school a problematic boy like that was through punishment.”

“That's horrible!”

“Yeah, but it makes sense. Think about our first mission: a motorbike fell on him and he woke up in a matter of seconds, and then pulled the bike off of him. If it was me, the shock and the pain alone wouldn't have let me move for much longer. But Illya has a high tolerance for pain, and a lot of times, those things are learned - acquired.”

“That so sad. The thought of teenage Peril in a Russian orphanage, being flogged into submission.”

“But this is just speculation of course, although it does seem more likely than him falling on his back on top a bunch of several...sharp things. Maybe it was some sort of KGB test.” “We need to find out.”

Some time later, Gaby saw the lashes with her own two eyes, when she helped their Russian partner out of a blood-soaked shirt. Illya was barely conscious, but still tried to hide himself, swayed trying to get to the bathroom, slurred that he'd patch himself up and needed no help.

Napoleon was with them, and was having none of that.

“I have to clean the cuts in your back, and you can't reach your own back, much less in this half sleepy state you're in.” The american said, guiding the blode to the couch.

“Just do it quick.”

Illya sat on the couch waiting for Napoleon to prepare the cleaning and bandaging supplies, giving Gaby a better look of the lashes. They looked old and painful. She counted them. There were twenty-nine of them, some shorter, some longer, covering all of his shoulders and part of his back. He felt her eyes on him and whispered a soft _don't look_ in her direction, too weak to do anything more. When Napoleon was done bandaging him, the first thing he did was ask for a shirt and Napoleon went to his suitcase, in the pursuit of something big enough for the Russian.

Gaby, still dazed after the meds she herself had been given, put her fingers on Illya's back, tracing the scars.

“How did this happen? Was it on the orphanage where you were?”

Illya's eyes widened, and he looked surprised.

“I went to the orphanage to escape that!”

“What kind of hell were you in so that a Russian orphanage seemed like the best option?”

Illya was silent for a long moment, but eventually spoke. Maybe it was the painkillers that were letting his tongue loose, maybe he had finally found someone with whom to unburden himself of the horror stories from his childhood. Whatever it was, he wanted to clean the name of the orphanage (where, despite the strictness and the lack of food and ressources, things hadn't been so bad) so he started telling the story.

“A man came home, a former friend of my father's... he said my father had sent him to take care of me. I believed him, at first, but he only wanted a house to do his...deals. What was kindness in the beginning became a horrible situation: he made me do things for him, and he said he had my mother and would her if I didn't cooperate. After some time, I stopped believing him. After a while, he started locking me up on the basement so I didn't bother him. The first time I tried to escape to denounce him and he and his friends found me, whipped me and left me tied to a chair in the basement for days. Then I escaped again, and ran away while he slept. After that, the orphanage was like heaven. “

Both Napoleon and Gaby had been rendered speechless. As horrible of the image of teenage Illya punished in his orphanage had been, the one where teenage Illya was whipped by a bunch of proably drunken russian criminals was even worse.

“What happened to this man? Your father's friend.” Napoleon asked, jaw clenched.

“I don't know. It's an episode I tried to forget, you can imagine why. Now, can I have that shirt?”

Napoleon handed him the top of his pyjamas and continued to watch the man in awe. Peril had lived through so much, and yet he shrugged it off as if it were nothing. He was a true survivor.

After the Russian had left for bed, Gaby passed him a handwritten note, in case there were voice recording trackers somewhere.

The note read:

_Use your CIA contacts. I want this man found, and I want him to know that justice will be served for what he did to Illya. Do whatever needs to be done._

Napoleon mouthed a silent “I will” and smiled mischievously.

Gaby looked at Illya's discarded bloody shirt, hoping that the stories behind the rest of her friend's scars weren't as gruesome. Hoping to find out and make up for them. She would make up for every single one of them.


	2. Leningrad

"I know you're there, KGB lapdog. I can hear you breathing. I can smell your blood. You cannot escape."

Illya was quiet, trying not to make a sound. Don't breathe. Don't cough. Don't do anything that would give your position away. You must stay still. Which was a bit difficult, because he was drenched in water after an incident on the seaport, it was several degrees below zero and it was starting to snow. Oh, and he had a gunshot wound on his lower stomach. He wanted to scream and to shiver violently and to rub his hands together. But he couldn't. He only could put pressure on his wound so that the blood wouldn't fall on the floor. 

"I will find you, whatever you do. You might as well come out now, let me finish you with some dignity."

Illya was still quiet. He's determining the best moment to strike back, the best angle to catch this man as silently as possible. A couple of shots, and he would be shut up, forever. Never taunt him again. Illya didn't like being taunted, specially when he was in excruciating pain and the mission hung in the balance. 

He waited for fifteen minutes until he knew the man had put himself in a place close to him, and shot a perfect headshot. The man fell on the snow, allowing Illya to take the documents he needed, the briefcase with the bomb parts he'd meant to trade to the enemies of the nation. He also took the man's flask and used his vodka to clean try and clean his gunshot wound, and used the man's scarf as a madeshift bandage. 

And then he ran, non stop, to the headquarters in Leningrad and he delivered the briefcase and the documents. After he got the okay from his superiors, he politely asked about the infirmary and collapsed in one of its beds. 

Mission accomplished.  
\--

"Show them, человек щит!" Ekaterina said happily, after finishing her tale. 

They had needed someone else from the KGB for this mission, someone who had been in Moscow the last year, and who'd have no problems to divulge classified information to him. So he had suggested Ekaterina Sokolov, because he knew she was an important figure right now, always in the shadows, and had always enjoyed working with him. Some time later, as a thank you, Napoleon suggested they invited her to New York, and were currently dining with her. 

"What did she call him?" Gaby asked Napoleon. 

"Human shield."

"That's right, because if you went to work with Kuryakin he took all the bullets, all the wounds and even all the blame and criticism. He took it all. Come on, Kuryakin, show them, or I may have to."

So, fearing Ekaterina may well fulfill her threat, he lifted his sweater a bit, showing a round scar on his side, on his lower left abdomen. 

"He's a legend on Moscow still, old Kuryakin. Although Vasiliev and the others are not very happy with your american partnershipWe worked, three... four times together? And it's always a pleasure. And it's amazing, you know, the abuse he can take."

Napoleon looked at his partner.

"...You are something else."

"But, Illya." Gaby said. "No more human shield business, okay. We use actual shields...or something."

"Whatever you say, Miss Teller. Whatever you say."


	3. The test

“How did these happen?”

Illya was wearing only his pants, thrown on the bed of the safe house they were in. He didn't usually were so little clothing, but the mission had brought them to New Delhi and it was simply too hot. Gaby sat next to him on the nig bed and pointed to some patches or raised red skin on his chest and left shoulder.

“It is not a pleasant story.”

“They never are, and yet I still want to know. Besides, you know a lot of my unpleasant stories. It’s only fair that you would share yours.”

Illya raised an eyebrow. Gaby liked to play innocent, but she was not.

“You say it’s only healthy curiosity, and that you do not care that much, but then you get angry with the people that caused them.”

“Of course I do! Like you get angry when I get hurt.”

“That’s different. I’m bigger. More... resistant.”

Also an idiot.

“You’re still human, Illya. And I am quite sure that you can still feel pain.”

“I don’t like this conversation.”

There was a moment of silence, and Gaby got closer to him, faces practically touching.

“Tell me about the scars.”

“Promise you will not retaliate?” It was a probably useless question. But Illya had to ask.

“Is it that bad?”

He finally relented. Maybe it was the heat muddling his head, lowering his defenses, his walls. Maybe it was Gaby's scent, so close to his. Maybe he just didin't care anymore.

“It was a test. To see how well did it work.”

“How well did what work?” 

“Acid.”

“Someone tested an acid on you?” Gaby asked, outraged. Why had everyone done so many terrible things to Illya? Why had he taken it all?

“They acquired it clandestinely and had to know the effects it had on human flesh. I was expendable back then, promising but just another name, another number, one of the many orphans who tried to make a living in the higer ranks. Nobody would miss me if I vanished - not that that was important. So they took three of us and ran some tests. They could have used prisoners, but this way they tested our loyalty and how we worked under extreme circumstances.”

“Like being burned with acid.”

“It may sound bad, but I was quite lucky. They gave Koloshov some sort of truth serum and he died two days later.”

“That’s terrible.” Gaby had been warned about the unpleasantness of the story and yet, a shiver coursed through her on the Indian heat.

“Most of the people that started on the KGB with me are dead already. We don’t have very long.... what is the word?... Oh, lifespan.”

There was another moment of silence as the german observed her friend, with all his scars, all his movements, all that made him.... Him.

“Illya.”

“Yes?”

“You do have the intention to live as long as possible, right? Be the exception to that short lifespan?”

“I never really imagined growing old. I always imagined dying on a mission, saving Russia in a blaze of glory and courage. Being remembered as a hero. Didn’t have much to live for either, when I was young, besides the desire to serve my homeland.”

“Russia was all you had.”

“Indeed. The only connection to anything I had loved.”

She took his big hand, intertwined it with hers. Enjoying how cool it was. 

“Has that changed? Do you have anything else to live for now?”

“Maybe it has.” It was a quiet admission, but Gaby saw all that he didn't allow himself to admit. It was a step forward.

“I would be so angry at you if you died in a blaze of glory, you have no idea. I would shout at your grave.”

“Well, you should probably be prepared, we do have a dangerous job.”

Gaby just shook her head.

“Never. We’ll be old people together, Illya, all three of us. Mark my words. We will have a small house in the Spanish coast and reminisce about our eventful past.” 

“It is a nice thought.”

Illya smiled and Gaby wished she could capture that moment forever. The heat outside, the bare room, them sitting on that big bed, hardly clothed, talking about life, looking at each other. Illya's  
face, his smile, his blue eyes, all the scars.

“Did it hurt a lot? The untested acid on your skin?"

“It was painful, yes, quite. But I was young and could take it. But I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It felt... it felt as if my chest was on fire for days, weeks even."

Gaby drew a sly smile.

"You do realise that I didn't actually promise not to retaliate, right?"

"....Gaby!"

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot seem to stop with the Illya h/c apparently. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Prompts still open at my tumblr claracivry.
> 
> Kisses and thank for the support so far!


End file.
